What constitutes “Science Fiction”?

This is probably one of those questions you’ve never bothered to ask yourself. Fans of the genre, however, ask it a lot—and write about it a lot. Some of them even get angry about it.

Take a look at the following titles of movies and books (that I hope you have at least heard of): Star Wars; Plan 9 From Outer Space; Star Trek; Buck Rogers; Flash Gordon. Which of these would you consider science fiction?

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”

So says the declaration of independence of the United States of America.

Somewhere out there, someone is buying my books.

I don’t know who. I don’t even know how they have heard about me or my books, but someone is buying them.

And not just any “someones”. Only people who have a Kindle.*

If you don’t know, Kindle is the e-reader developed and sold by Amazon.com. They are supposed to be light years beyond their competitors, with a non-glare screen that (they advertise) is just like looking at print on paper and can even be read in bright sunlight. The first Kindle they came out with a while back kept selling out.

My family knows I like to have the lights off. I have my kids pretty well trained to turn off the light as they leave a room.

This is all about my personal electric bill. I am, when it comes to things financial, a cheapskate.

Our dear departed cat Bonkers, rest her soul, taught me to look before stepping out onto the porch. See, she liked to leave us presents. When she was in a good mood, she would leave us dead mice on the porch—stepping on one with your bare feet can really wake you up!

In less savory moods, she’d throw up on the porch. You don’t want to step in that, either. Then there were hairballs and other less-savory bodily products.

Christopher Booker writes, "Sea levels are not shooting up but only continuing their modest 3mm a year rise over the past 200 years. The vast Antarctic ice-sheet is not melting, except in one tiny corner, the Antarctic Peninsula. Tropical hurricane activity, far from increasing, is at its lowest level for 30 years. The best correlation for temperature fluctuations is not CO2 but the magnetic activity of the sun." In his excellent article you can read at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/4990704/... )

It’s that time of year when Hollywood votes on it’s favorite or best movies and the rest of the country waits in anxious anticipation … to see who will be the opening day starters for their favorite baseball team. While we wait for that, I thought I would publish—for no good reason—a list of my 89 favorite movies.

Why 89?

Boy, do I feel like a sucker! Here I've been for years only buying houses I could afford to pay for, making my mortgage payment on time, running up a credit rating over 810 ... when along comes our President rewarding exactly the opposite behavior.

Buy a house you couldn't make the payment on? Don't worry, we'll get those poor saps who have been paying their taxes (i.e. "no one in my cabinet") to cover your loan.

I spent early Monday morning sitting in a room with a dying body.

I had gotten a call on Sunday afternoon that one of our hospice patients—a man I had visited with a few times over the preceding weeks—had taken a turn for the worse and death was imminent. In fact, the person who called me and asked me to take the 1:30 to 4:30 (a.m.) sitting shift didn’t expect the patient to last to my shift.

As the Cowboys and Seahawks knew before them, the Cardinals learned that you can't beat the Steelers and the refs.